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So it's clear that without Warhammer there wouldn't be Warcraft nor Starcraft. But how would Warhammer look like if GW sold license to Blizzard years ago?
Share your ideas

Better. Blizzard is significantly more competent than Games Workshop.

Actually, I would argue that it would be in a worse situation crunch wise, and may have gone long way to kill the TT portion of the game. This being the fluff portion of the board, I know most people here care a great deal about the fluff, and blizzard is great at writing fluff. However, if you look at other gaming and TT hobbies trying to go mainstream and or incorporate a long term video game platform, most notably D&D 4th ed, it usually ends badly for the game crunch wise. And Crunch is what sells games and keeps them going.
The D&D online game came out during 3.5 and didn't really accurately mirror TT class abilities and mechanics and so they tried to change the class abilities on TT to make the more MMO like whe nthey released 4th ed. The fan base reeled from it.
Similarly The WFB mmo was really cool and many TT players liked it for the fluff and the mechanics of the game, but mainstream MMO players didn't like it, mainly because it had to compete with WOW, and the UI wasn’t as simple or easy to use, and the class mechanics required a little more skill and strategy than the face roll WOW had become at the time.
If they had successfully licensed the IP to Blizzard and Blizzard had stayed faithful initially to the game setting, what would have happened is two distinct consumer markets/fan bases would have developed, the TT players and the MMO players. The MMO players would have generated far more money for GW than the TT players would have by sheer volume. The monthly subscription costs alone and initial game purchases, not even counting in game purchases, character transfers, and alliance switching, would generate more money than the amount GW makes off of model sales. This would cause the company and fluff writers to favor the MMO side over the TT side by sheer economics, and the TT would have either slowly died or divested itself of the MMO and gone in a separate direction. The game would be hard pressed to survive that in a meaningful and fun way. It would have reverted back to a small niche market, while the MMO would either continue to turn people off of the TT or give them false expectations of what the game would be. We as TT players would hate it because we would feel like the company ignores more than they already do. Ask any long time D&D player how they feel about WOTC or Hasbro post D&D3.5.

Blizzard might not even have continued the miniatures line. They might have used the IP solely for their video games.

Also, isn't this the wrong board?

Blizzard might not even have continued the miniatures line. They might have used the IP solely for their video games.

Selling the license to use an IP doesnt mean you give up the ownership of IP.

40k would be all about Ghazgull Thrakka and how he leads the now noble Orks into a better future.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
40k would be all about Ghazgull Thrakka and how he leads the now noble Orks into a better future.

That and even though a bunch of nameless yet awesome orks or other "adventurers" of other races that wander the galaxy, kick butt and save the day, Ghaz will always suddenly appear at the end to take the kill and all the credit he doesn't really deserve as he has actually done nothing to very little the whole time except talk a lot and perhaps a few small things.

It would be a cartoony piece of gak with crappier writing, worse character design, and even worse games.

We'd be swiftly pining for the good ole days when warhammer was better written

Instead of the Swarmlord the most iconic Tyranid character would be some Tyrannified Human Psyker woman with a carapace that emphasizes her tits and ass for some reason and has belligerent sexual tension with her Space Marine ex and oh look I just threw up in my mouth. :UUUUUU

 Kain wrote:
Instead of the Swarmlord the most iconic Tyranid character would be some Tyrannified Human Psyker woman with a carapace that emphasizes her tits and ass for some reason and has belligerent sexual tension with her Space Marine ex and oh look I just threw up in my mouth. :UUUUUU

Yeeeaaaahhh.... I thought making Kerrigan the main Zerg character an very strange choice.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Instead of the Swarmlord the most iconic Tyranid character would be some Tyrannified Human Psyker woman with a carapace that emphasizes her tits and ass for some reason and has belligerent sexual tension with her Space Marine ex and oh look I just threw up in my mouth. :UUUUUU

Yeeeaaaahhh.... I thought making Kerrigan the main Zerg character an very strange choice.

You know it's because they want to animate her butt.

 Kain wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Instead of the Swarmlord the most iconic Tyranid character would be some Tyrannified Human Psyker woman with a carapace that emphasizes her tits and ass for some reason and has belligerent sexual tension with her Space Marine ex and oh look I just threw up in my mouth. :UUUUUU

Yeeeaaaahhh.... I thought making Kerrigan the main Zerg character an very strange choice.

You know it's because they want to animate her butt.

As long as it sells.

 lcmiracle wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Instead of the Swarmlord the most iconic Tyranid character would be some Tyrannified Human Psyker woman with a carapace that emphasizes her tits and ass for some reason and has belligerent sexual tension with her Space Marine ex and oh look I just threw up in my mouth. :UUUUUU

Yeeeaaaahhh.... I thought making Kerrigan the main Zerg character an very strange choice.

You know it's because they want to animate her butt.

As long as it sells.

It still made me want to wash my eyes in caustic soda

 Trondheim wrote:

It still made me want to wash my eyes in caustic soda

Well, ya' can't please everyone. But as long as enough people would pay for it...

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Instead of the Swarmlord the most iconic Tyranid character would be some Tyrannified Human Psyker woman with a carapace that emphasizes her tits and ass for some reason and has belligerent sexual tension with her Space Marine ex and oh look I just threw up in my mouth. :UUUUUU

Yeeeaaaahhh.... I thought making Kerrigan the main Zerg character an very strange choice.

my guess is they thought that people would relate to her better then some hive mind node

Yeah the developers were boring like that.

Kerrigan's design is oversexualised, otherwise she's entirely fine.

Everything would be a lot...cleaner in aesthetics. Like, compare the MK VIII to the CMC-300 and you'll see what I mean- like wow. It's like crazy inbred redneck Tau are in charge of the Confederacy's major arms companies.

Well so far it is hard to compare digital producer to mini producer but I can say that maybe SC plot wasn't that good but WC was just a masterpiece. (at least for me, still better than end of times and more times endings). They are to release movie about first war in 1-2 year with Travis Fimmel as Anduin Lothar. Blizzard is much more recognized than GW but it's caused of PC - nothing more to say about it.

ITT The Blizzard hate is strong.

Actually I think Blizzard would manage finely. Their fiction like Jake Ramsay and such is interesting and readable. Plus GW now works with THQ to publish vilified video-games. So the people seems to just not move with the flow, and just contemplating their own navels.

first of all THQ is dead. secondly there is a distinct differance between lisecening a product, and having a video game producer own an IP. Thirdly, video games can have fantastic plots (I actually cried in the scene at the end of Tchunka in ME3) but not all video games do. and I've never been all that impressed with Blizzards writing

 Melissia wrote:
It would be a cartoony piece of gak with crappier writing, worse character design, and even worse games.

So it would be the same then.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Kerrigan's design is oversexualised, otherwise she's entirely fine.

She’s not fine in HOTS. Blizzard has completely ruined her character.

 Redcruisair wrote:

She’s not fine in HOTS. Blizzard has completely ruined her character.

I have not really seen her at all in the little time I have played HotS. I don't doubt it though. Blizzard is fine at many things. Female characters is not one of them.

Well, having Kerrigan become a Queen of the Zergs was a good plot in Broodwar. It's a bit of a twist and also a nice story about Kerrigan wrestling control of the swarm from the Cerebrates after the Overmind was destroyed. Broodwar's story line is actually pretty well thought-out, if a bit predicable. But then they recycled that plot for Sylvanas in WC3, except this time the Overmind (Lich King) ain't dead...

But given the BLZ handled the Starcraft franchise with a very Hollywood feeling, most likely a BLZ 40K is less feudalism in SPACCCEEE and more wild west in SPACCEEE. It might suit someone, but I do think the one thing 40K got going for itself is the flavor different kind of feudalism brings in.

Also, Eldars are Elves, they are literally just Elves. BLZ can do anything with them, and all that will change is that we will have all craftworlds destroyed and exodites become the predominant Eldar faction.

 Pheonix Lord Asurmen wrote:
ITT The Blizzard hate is strong.

Blizzard makes very well polished and fun games. They are just abysmal when it comes to writing especially when it comes to WoW in recent times.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Pheonix Lord Asurmen wrote:
ITT The Blizzard hate is strong.

Blizzard makes very well polished and fun games. They are just abysmal when it comes to writing especially when it comes to WoW in recent times.

eh they've never been all that great. war craft 1 and 2 where very.... cliche (not nesscarily a bad thing but we didn't love and play those games for the strong back story) warcraft 3's plot... eh not my thing

Star Craft had some decent moments.......... mostly when they where shamelessly borrowing from GW

Warcraft 1 was originally set up to be a WFB RTS, but GW rejected it, irc.

If GW's IP had been bought by Blizzard, we would've seen a much better computer game presence. As this is all mental masturbation, I imagine Warhammer Online would've been considerably better and polished if it still had been pursued. Maybe a new Dawn of War style RTS as well.

Tabletop-wise I'm not sure. Blizzard's licensing of its IP for board games has been poorer than a knock off beggar. However, as OP says Blizzard bought the IP and not the company, I can only imagine worse miniatures and possibly rules. GW's recent toy soldiers look good, and they are made by GW staff.

BrianDavion wrote:
Star Craft had some decent moments.......... mostly when they where shamelessly borrowing from GW

And what are these things StarCraft have "shamelessly" borrowed from 40K? Please do go ahead and tell me. I'm very curious to hear what you think about it.